10 months till!

These months are flying by! Lindsay graduated, Chesley, my older brother came in from NYC to do some stand up comedy, and I went camping/fishing on an island in the Mississippi river::::

And catching fish too! Mississippi flooding rules for trout lines and limb lines. It's Memorial Day and we are gonna throw down on a fish fry. Things I will miss on the trail...

I'm about to be a manager at skate camp for two weeks. Hot sun, 30 little kids, two weeks, 7am -  yikes. But every cent is going to the trail because June is the last month we have to pay rent cause we are moving into my dad's house come July to save. So June is gonna super hectic but financially rewarding.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy put up a post on Facebook a couple weeks about a video they needed edited for a Land Acquisition conference coming up in July and I offered to volunteer my services and, after sending them a couple other of my short videos(99 Lives, Yeahhh, and Weedlord: Lord of the Weeds), they asked me to help them out. Awesome!!! Volunteer or not, I can't wait to make something for the ATC! I've had a couple "conference calls" as they called it and they have been sending me stuff little by little. This weekend I will be editing ferociously to have a solid video to help with the AT to acquire land! Really excited!

Other than that, Chaser's backpack will be here in the next couple days and I ordered these two books today:

I can't wait to get more in depth with the trail. Should be super informative.

That's all I got right now!
Later everybody!

counting down the months

ahhh, i have graduated from college!!!!! 

this is my "i can't wait to go on the trail" woodcut that i did as the last thing for the semester, and as a look to the future. 

love,lindsay

Been too long!

Alright Alright Alright, guys.
Been a couple weeks but we have all but forgotten about you. It's been a hectic couple of weeks. Lindsay in the final stretch of graduating with a bachelor's in painting and drawing and myself, family in town and A LOT of gardening. Soooo, I got the ukulele and it rules. Can't stop playing it. Lindsay is currently painting an amazing landscape. She's so good at what she does. We'd like to work it out where if you donate towards the trip she'll paint a scene for you of the AT when we get back. You choose the picture as we'll have hundreds, I'm sure.
Backpacks:

We've been building the hype. Family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike are backing us. At Easter everyone in the family wanted to hear about it. They read about it on Facebook and had a line of questions for me.  Lots of support.
Lindsay and I met people at the dog park the other day and they seemed genuinely invested in the idea of us hiking the AT. They were so happy to hear that that is our goal. It's fun to talk about. We refer so many people to this blog so we are about to do a lot better at keeping up.

This time next year we should be in or near the Great Smokey Mountains. Lindsay's friend who is moving to Kentucky offered to care for Chaser though the national park where dogs are not allowed. She'll drop him back off and all. I hope that plan doesn't fall through.

The Mississippi River is flooding so I'm going crawfishing this weekend. It's hard to describe how I used to feel when I hiked through the woods whether it be to mess with stands, hunting, or just scoping things out. Often exhausting and, in the the sun, frustrating I'd want to just give up. But since the plan of thru hiking the attitude flip flopped. No more complaining. If anything, I intentionally pick up the pace. I love hiking and I'm so ready to have nothing but that to do. I love the mountains and the woods and 6 months in the middle of it with my two best friends is going to be the best 6 months.

I'll say 11 months can't pass fast enough but then it just might and we need that time to get funds up. Come July, the move into my dad's will be complete and the money shall rise. Possibly slowly, but definitely surely.

That's alls we'z gots right now. Thanks to anyone who actually takes time to read these. There will be more and soon.

Colton